"The dream of Pharaoh is one. The seven kine are seven years; and the
seven good ears are seven years: the dream is one.... And for that the
dream was doubled unto Pharaoh twice, it is because the thing is
established."...

In other words: Behind three or four subtitles and changes of time, scene,
characters, this tale of strong hearts is one. And for that the tale is
tripled or quadrupled unto you three or four times (the number will
depend); it is because in each of its three or four aspects--or separate
stories, if you insist--it sets forth, in heroic natures and poetic fates,
a principle which seems to me so universal that I think Joseph would say
of it also, as he said to the sovereign of Egypt, "The thing is
established of God."

I know no better way to state this principle, being a man, not of letters,
but of commerce (and finance), than to say--what I fear I never should
have learned had I not known the men and women I here tell of--that
religion without poetry is as dead a thing as poetry without religion. In
our practical use of them, I mean; their infusion into all our doing and
being. As dry as a mummy, great Joseph would say.

Shall I be more explicit? Taking that great factor of life which men, with
countless lights, shades, narrownesses and breadths of meaning, call
Religion, and taking it in the largest sense we can give it; in like
manner taking Poetry in the largest sense possible; this cluster of tales
is one, because from each of its parts, with no argument but the souls and
fates they tell of, it illustrates the indivisible twinship of Poetry and
Religion; a oneness of office and of culmination, which, as they reach